I thought marriage was a breeze until I had kids. I thought parenting was easy until the firstborn became a toddler. I thought two kids was a juggling act until I had three. Yeah, don't bother reading my thoughts. They will probably be wrong. ~The Denise half of Dwayne & Denise

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Cabineering—Living up to a New Verb

Once Dwayne and I got some skateboarding out of our system, we headed over to the cabin to kick off Winter Break. We took separate cars, because that’s what we do, and Dwayne worked on Monday.

(Doesn’t it look cozy? That’s Piper’s finger after the rest of her sticky hands found my camera.)

I had barely brought in our bags when Dwayne and I started in on the yard—after some major windstorms that actually left our neighbor’s house with a tree-sized dent from one end of the house to the other—we were grateful to just be picking up heaps and heaps of branches. It took enough time that somehow dinner didn’t a chance to thaw, so Dwayne had to take us to dinner.

[Dining note: With a great atmosphere that only falls short of Gordon’s on Blueberry Hill and food that matches, we recommend Glass Alley Cafe in Freeland. It had reopened under new management the week before.]

When Dwayne left us on Sunday, we just had a hours to wait for Jen to drop Aubrey off for the next few nights. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I only had my own 3.

This is what the ended up doing:

Piper playing XBox.

Wesley napping next to Piper playing video games.

Kyla shut in her bedroom listening to audiobooks. (Not pictured, as she prefers.)

My working theory is that’s its usually a good idea to break up the siblings with someone who they haven’t fought with for 24 hours. Also, it’s an inexact science, but the more kids, the less, they need me. Which is why Eli came around most of Monday.

I took the 5 kids down to our beach and saw a first for us—the tide so high that it covered the entire beach, all the way up to the log that is usually our last hurdle to the shore. (Yep, that is where we repel down to the beach.)

And Kyla is the first to fall in the drink. No surprise, as she might be the kids most like me. She was cheerful until she got back to the cabin by herself and couldn’t remember the combo to get inside. Sorry, kid, I forgot how hard remembering random numbers can be for you.

With Jen back with us on Monday, our time quickly filled until Tuesday afternoon when we had to leave to be back in time for yet another repairman at home. (However, now every appliance at both places is working. Knock on wood and throw salt over my shoulder.)